The Best Dating Advice

In our point-and-click world of instant gratification and multiple choice living, were faced with more options about what to have, be and do than any other generation in history.

This is especially true when it comes down to choosing a mate. With the inroduction of the internet and the widespread use social media, our options have exploded. Where you were once limited to meeting someone in your geographical area, you can now meet people from all over the world.

Internet Dating, whose humble roots started in the back pages of the local newspaper classified section has lost the stigma of “desperation” and become and accepted and valuable time-management tool for students and young urban professionals on the go.

The promise is: your ability to meet thousands of singles who exactly match the criteria you have for a mate. This has lead some to adopt a “checklist” approach to dating.

The problem is: the longer your checklist is, the less people you will find who meet all your criteria. While this may help you to narrow the field of unlimited choices initially, you need to understand that as you add more attributes, you will be disqualifying people whom under different circumstances you might have called “The One”.

If you use your checklist as a “guide” and not a “must have” list of qualities, you will avoid the trap that many singles find themselves in while on their quest for love. Many times our lists contain attributes that are found across a range of personality types, and could never be realistically embodied by one person.

Here’s what to do:

Take your checklist and segregate it into 3 sections. Choose only your top five :
“must have” qualities
“would be nice to have” qualities and
“better not have” qualities

Keep it simple and you will find you are meeting a lot of potential partners. There are a lot of great people out there.

If you “buy in” to the media and societal message that your extensive checklist “soul mate” is “just around the corner”, you may find yourself being hyper-critical with the people you do date, to the point where you are continually disqualifying potential candidates based on minor flaws and never quite finding that perfect relationship you are so desperately chasing.

For anything of significance that has been achieved by humankind, there has been a plan. From the pyramids in Egypt, through the various wars that pepper our history books, to the individual need to outwit, outplay and outlast, there has been a blueprint or strategy for getting the job done.

Why would it be any different in your love life?

Yet, so many men and women have decided that it’s not under their control and chalk it up to fate. How many times have your friends or family members said, “It’ll just happen… when the time is right”? Or “If it’s meant to be….it’ll happen”. Would you travel to a new city without getting directions and proclaim that you’ll get there “If it’s meant to be”?

Fate may be the weight of circumstance, but shouldn’t you align those circumstances in your favour? I do agree that “Things Happen For A Reason”, but that reason is largely influenced by your actions or inactions. Sitting at home and watching TV while waiting for your ideal mate to find you is kinda like playing “Hide & Seek” by hopping the next plane to Europe.

There’s a better way.

Here’s your 3 step Action Plan:

1) Realize that if it’s going to happen, you need to become a creative force is making it happen. This one makes a lot of people uneasy, because it requires moving out of your “comfort zone”

2) Decide exactly what the person you are looking for will look like, their personality, their likes and dislikes, level of education, attitude towards life, even the type of watch they wear. Details are key.

3) Take action everyday to meet this person. Where would they go? Go there. Where do they shop? Shop there. Put yourself in their way. That’s how they will find you.

Try it. You’ll like it.

When it comes to dating and romance, nothing is more pressuring than a first date. But what if it didn’t have to happen that way? What if you had a plan? A basic blueprint for handling the date? From beginning to end?

You know how it is. Maybe you are out with friends at the pool hall, or even alone at the bus stop, and then you see him/her. Your pulse quickens, your sweat glands engage and you start feeling anxious and aren’t sure what to do about it. Who is this person who seems to be causing your (allergic?) reaction? How is this stranger intoxicating your senses so profoundly? You instantly want to know everything about them, even possess them. You lose the desire to eat, the urge to sleep. This person is all you can think about.

Driven by your dominant urges, you finally decide to make yourself vulnerable to rejection. You may have spent days or weeks mustering up the courage to talk to him/her and ask them out. And the risk turns out to be worth it, because they said “yes”. You relax. Your physiological responses return to normal and you start thinking about how great it is that you have set up a date with this person.

This is where many people go astray. They start making HD quality pictures in their heads about how great things will be when they get together with this person and start investing a lot of emotion in to the process. When it’s finally time to go on the date, they have built up their expectations so high that there is MASSIVE pressure to make sure everything goes right.

So, what do you do now? You have a date, but do you have a plan for the date? All of sudden you start worrying about all the things that will go wrong if you somehow do not impress this person. Having a plan will dramatically increase your chances of having things work out the way you want them to, but what of the intangibles? Which “you” are you showing up as? How do you create that “connection”? Are we having fun yet? How do you “end” the date? I recently posted a FREE nine-page PDF report called: “7 Tips For a Killer First Date“, designed to help you navigate these first date minefields. You can download it here:

It’ll should answer about 90% of your questions, send me an e-mail for the other 10%.

Being alone can suck. Being alone on a day when you are consistently bombarded with images of happy, loving couples can be downright “slit your wrists” depressing. The endless advertisements for how important & special it is to be in a relationship on this day can leave you feeling angry, lonely and bitter, staring at the clouds in your coffee, wondering “what the hell is wrong with me?”

I would like to think that “what’s wrong with you” is that you have standards. After all, anyone with half a brain, a little persistence and a bit of time on their hands can get a date. But is the meth-head from down the street, living in the cardboard box adjacent to the Salvation Army store really the person you want to introduce to mom?

In automobile lingo, you would be dating a Yugo. Yeah, it’ll get the job done, but essential things like a heater are considered “optional extras”. Now, a Porsche will cost you more (in time & effort) and may be a little harder to come by, but you won’t have to worry about freezing your toes on those cold winter nights.

Take a moment to remind yourself that you are sticking to your vision. You have already chosen not to get involved with anyone who doesn’t live up to your standards. You have already decided to take the time to find someone with all the qualities you respect and admire. You already know that doing this will give your future relationship it’s best shot at success. Don’t compromise your values now, because you are feeling the pressure to be “relationshiped”.

However, if you’re determined to get a date so you too can be apart of the Valentine’s Day festivities, you will want to figure out where your target prospects are likely to hang out. Are you more likely to find someone to date:

*at your local gym?
*taking in an art class?
*doing yoga at the “Y”?
*hanging out online?
*volunteering at your favorite charity?
*out walking your dog?

Most men and women of quality aren’t hanging out at the local pub, martini bar or nightclub. Some are, but you will find the majority of them out doing things in your day-to-day life. Think about where you went today. Did you meet anyone interesting? Could you have? What about that hottie who smiled at you? The one in the coffee shop? The one browsing the sale rack in the specialty boutique?Potential dates abound. You just need to tune in to the possibilities.

Even better, find them where they’re actually looking for you:

Have you ever met a really awesome chick or a super cool dude? I’m talking about someone who captures your imagination and truly stands out from all the other men or women online. Someone so intriguing that you just want to know everything about them.

A week ago, you were a normal, levelheaded person enjoying life. Now, your head is filled with thoughts about someone you don’t really know and who dosen’t know you. Still, you can’t stop thinking about them. You want to know where they are right now. You want to know what they are doing, who they are doing it with and even your friends are starting to call your behaviour “stalker-ish”. Yup, your obsessed.

The alluring promise of finding your perfect mate, your perfect girlfriend/boyfriend, your perfect one-night-stand can be overwhellming. You start thinking about what it would be like to spend a lot of time with them, what it would be like to date them, what it would be like to sleep with them. And you find that all these thoughts send a jolt of excitement through your body and you feel you have to make this happen. The next thing you know you’re spending all your free time and maybe even some of your work time online searching through profiles to find them.

We can easily get caught up in the fantasies in our heads. We predict (favorably) how someone will react to us as if it were fact and then add favorable circumstance after favorable circumstance until any resemblance to the actual person’s personality and situation is non-existent. But we think it’s real and then we act on this new reality and get upset when things don’t turn out like we wanted or expected.

Just like social media, internet dating has a darkside. We need to set some realistic expectations of what we will find. Here are three ways to keep your head and keep it real:

1) Go with your “gut”. If the other person seems in any way unreal, sketchy or makes you feel vulnerable, say “thanks, but no thanks”, no matter how great they seem “on paper”.

2) Don’t spend weeks chatting/e-mailing/IMing. You want to move offline as soon as reasonably possible. If you want your romantic fantasy to come true, you need to create it in person, not from behind your firewall.

3) Understand that no matter how much time you’ve spent romancing each other online, the first time you meet in person is really the first time you are meeting them. Respect it as such. It’s a whole new experience in 3D.